In North American countries and those other countries of the "Free
World" who are predominantly "Christian," there has been arising an attitude
of fear concerning the spirit and forerunner of the Antichrist.

Some people believe the Antichrist will come as a result of the heretical
modern day ecumenist movement which embodies the World Council of Churches,
the Roman Catholic Church (Vatican), several of the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchates
(Constantinople, Moscow, Antioch) and others.

Other people believe the Protestant heresy will be the method and
means of Antichrist's appearance, while even some believe the offices of
the Pope (Roman Catholic - - Vatican) is the Antichrist.

There re even those who believe that the Anti-Christian religion
of Islam (Muslim) with its Quoran (Koran) holy book is the vehicle of Antichrist.

In light of those more recent events in Afghanistan, Iraq and other
Arabic countries; fear has risen among many people around the world, especially
in the United States of America since it was attacked on its own soil in
New York City and the Pentagon (September 11, 2001 = 911).

"Terrorism" is a key word because of threats against a nation's sovereignty,
peace and culture. As a result, various countries in the Free World,
Democracies, have brought about new laws which, it is opined, have a negative
effect on certain rights of the people. Most believe that this is
more evident than in the United States of America and Canada.

In the United States there are many (Alaska, Hawaii, New Mexico...
numerous cities and counties across the land) who believe that the Bill
of Rights and the U.S. Constitution have been abridged. The freedoms
afforded in religion and speech, according to them, are slowly being eroded,
with more laws to follow which will eventually strip away most of what
presently remain and that those who will be feeling the affects of such
new laws are Churches and clergymen as well as other organizations aiding
in the fight against poverty and other philanthropic institutions.

Is the spirit of Antichrist in the world now? Has Antichrist
become a person? How can one tell what or who the forerunner is?

From the writings of the now reposed Archbishop Averky, known to
the Sainted Archbishop John Maximovitch, we learn that in St. Paul's Epistle
to the Thessalonians, beginning from the second chapter, the teaching about
Antichrist enters Apostolic activity. Following the description in
the third to fourth verse of that chapter, the holy apostle write further,
"Do you not remember that when I was still with you, I told you this?"
(1 Thess. 5:5), and in verse seven, another translation is rendered "Evil
will operate secretly until the final unmasking". Even
though St. Paul was in Thessalonika for a short time, he considered it
very important to pass on this teaching.

It should become apparent that the teaching was very important because
the Holy Fathers warn us that those who ignore the teaching, consider it
unimportant, will not only fail to recognize the Antichrist, but will end
up worshipping him, even unknowingly, and then it will be to late.

Bishop Ignatti (Bryanchainov), according to Archbishop Averky, made
a special collection of what the Holy Fathers had said about Antichrist,
indicating the extreme importance in early Christianity the Church held
this teaching as vital to salvation.

From the writings of Archbishop Averky, come the following with editorial
comments in squared "[ ]" brackets ....

"Antichrist will cll himself a preacher and restorer of true knowledge
of God: those who do not understand Christianity will see in him a representative
and champion of true religion and will join themselves to him. Antichrist
will appear to be gentle, merciful, full of love and of all virtues: he
will be recognized as such and obeyed on account of his most exalted virtues
by those who recognize fallen human nature as the truth.... [1].

Antichrist will offer to mankind the organization of the highest
earthly well-being and prosperity, he will offer honors, wealth, majesty,
and bodily comforts and pleasures: those who seek earthly things will accept
the Antichrist and call him their master.

Antichrist will reveal before mankind a shameful display of striking
miracles similar to the cunning presentation of the theater... [2].

He will instill fear by the terrors and wonders of his miracles,
and by them satisfy vanity and human pride, he will satisfy carnal sophistry
and superstition, and will confuse human learning: all men who are guided
by the light of their fallen nature and who are foreign to guidance by
the Light of God will be attracted to obey the deceiver".

The Antichrist will be accepted with excitement by apostates from
Christianity, but is deserving of deep attention and mourning, as the Holy
Father note, that the chosen themselves will be uncertain about the person
of the Antichrist, so skillfully will he be able to conceal from external
observation the Satanic evil roots in him. [3]

"The Antichrist's opponents will be considered trouble-makers and
enemies of the general welfare and good order [4],
they will be subjected to both concealed and open persecution, torture,
and execution" [5].

All who refuse to worship the Antichrist will fall into the most
painful and difficult position: "their small number will seem insignificant
before all mankind, and their opinion will be thought especially feeble,
subject to general contempt, hatred slander, and oppression [5],
violent death will be their lot".

Pious Reader: Do you not find that the picture described above to
some extent reminds one of what is already going on in the world?

Yes! But where is the Antichrist? Has he come already?

We do not see yet Antichrist himself, but his spirit obviously is
settling in and already beginning to rule in the world. A large number
of forerunners of Antichrist are preparing with tremendous energy for his
arrival, his triumph, and his enthronement among mankind. Of course,
a very long and considered preparation is necessary for the Antichrist
to be able to be accepted amongst Christian people. It has been and
is being conducted from the very times of the Apostles with every greater
intensity. Thus, even the Apostle St. John the Theologian wrote in
his First General Epistle: "Every spirit which does not confess that Jesus
Christ has come in the flesh is not of God: but that is the spirit of Antichrist,
of which you have heard that it should come, and even now it is already
in the world" (1 John 4:3).

"Who is a liar but he that denies that Jesus is the Christ?
He is Antichrist, that denies the Father and the Son" (1 John 2:22), and
finally, "As you have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now are there
many antichrists" (1 John 2:18).

The learned commentator on the Holy Scripture, Bishop Michael, remarks
that in the Greek original the name "Antichrist" has the definite article,
which completely distinguishes this name as that of a well-known, definite
person, while the other "antichrists" are only the forerunners of that
Antichrist who will appear before Christ's Second Coming and the end of
the world: they are, as it were, "reflection" of their "Prototype" - -
- the individual Antichrist who is to come. They bear the spirit
of Antichrist, and it is their task to lay the proper groundwork for the
advent of Antichrist and to create propitious circumstances for his appearance
in the world.

These "forerunners" of the Antichrist also direct that world-wide
process which the Apostle St. Paul called "apostasy" (II Thess. 2:3).
The essence of this process is Christian mankind's ever greater departure
from the genuine, uncorrupted teaching of the Gospel and the replacement
of the Gospel commands with other ideals [6],
the destructive nature of these ideals proposed to mankind by the Antichrist's
forerunners is that they sometimes seem acceptable for Christians, compatible
with Christianity, while in reality they are profoundly opposed to it;
they gratify human passions and lusts and confirm mankind's fallen nature
in its fallen state.

Can one trace this process of "apostasy" in history and in life?

Yes! One can and should! One should, in order to save
oneself and one's neighbor from being attracted into this process, to draw
back from it, to save oneself from being infected by the spirit of Antichrist
which more and more is taking over the world.

The devil, of course, could not reconcile himself to the appearance
of Christianity in the world, and so from the times of the Apostles we
see the "spirit of Antichrist" at work in Christian people.

The first "forerunners of Antichrist" were Simon Magus, Cerinthus,
and the Nicolaitians, with whom the Holy Apostles had to fight. Then
came the Gnostics and a whole crowd of every possible sort of heretic with
which the Holy Fathers and teachers of the Church had to fight over the
course of several centuries.

In the first ten centuries of the Christian era the spirit of genuine
faith and piety was, however, still strong enough in Christians that it
enjoyed every time a brilliant victory over the "spirit of Antichrist"...
and the Church of Christ, despite all the heavy trials it endured, was
triumphant over its enemies.

But then by the middle of the eleventh century the "spirit of Antichrist"
had so firmly taken root in the West that it was able to completely tear
away a whole half of Christendom from union with the Universal Church.
The result of this was "Papism" with its many and varied departures from
genuine Christian teaching on faith and piety - with its newly conceived
dogmas, defective morality, indulgences, the "sacred inquisition," and
similar perversions.

This was the first decisive victory of the "forerunners of Antichrist".
Others soon followed it.

{Editorial Note: In the year 2000
- Have we not already been witness to the allowing of the statute of 'Buddha'
being put on top of a Tabernacle by the Vatican (Pope), and the Pope worshipping
with the Dalhai Lama to Buddha? Yes! This is fact!}

At the end of the middle ages, to totally root out the remnants of
Christianity, the same "spirit of Antichrist" conceived in the bosom of
"Papism," which had torn itself away from the true Orthodox Catholic Faith,
movements which were completely opposed to Christianity - unrestrained
free thought, "humanism," which places man himself in the place of God,
and.... finally.... "atheism" or total godlessness.

It was not without the strong influence of those movements that there
occurred in the 16th century a schism within the Papal church organization
itself, becoming known as "Protestantism," [1] which supposedly undertook
to reform the Church, but which in reality went further on the way of "apostasy"
and denied the very essence of the Church. Protestantism in turn
began more and more to break up into fragments, "sects" - many of which
at the present time have departed so far from Christianity that they deny
its most important dogmas and even faith in the Divinity of the Founder
of Christianity, the Lord Jesus Christ. This process by which the
bigoted and ridiculous new sects are constantly arising has not stopped
even now. It is extremely characteristic how clearly the "spirit
of Antichrist" is manifested in all these acts. The majority, if
not all, of them talk a lot about the Second Coming of Christ and await
him with special impatience and excitement (ie: Adventists), but they are
silent about the advent of the Antichrist which will precede it, or else
they affirm that the Antichrist already exists in the person of the Pope
of Rome.

Typical in this regard was the conference held in Evanston, organized
by Protestants and sectarians and conducted under the device: "Christ
- The Hope of the World." Very much was said at this conference
about the "Second Coming of Christ" and about the blessings which it would
bring to men on earth (!?), but there was total silence about the Antichrist!
Does this not naturally lead one to the thought that Protestants and sectarians
are gradually being prepared by their leaders to accept the Antichrist
when he appears as Christ Himself?

At the same time the clearly antichristian teachings of materialism,
socialism, and Marxism-communism are [7]
appearing and being propagandized in the West, and social and political
organizations with secret worship of Satan are spreading their nets ever
wider, acting just as the Antichrist himself will act, "with diabolical
craftiness and hypocrisy" (as Bishop Ignatii puts it). The heads
of these organizations, these truly silver-tongued "foxes at heart and
wolves in soul" (as St. Nilus the Myrrh-gusher of Mt. Athos said) are gradually
taking control through out the whole world not only of public and political
life, but also of people's religious life [3].
This is all directed to one goal, the preparation of conditions propitious
for humanity's accepting the Antichrist.

The chief hindrance on the way to the attaining of this goal was
Orthodox Russia, the only powerful support of the true Orthodox Christian
faith in the world with its Emperor, the sovereign defender and protector
of the whole Orthodox Church at the time.

In the course of two centuries the "forerunners" of the Antichrist
worked systematically and stubbornly to transform the Russian Orthodox
Empire into the atheist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. When
this was achieved, a new effort was undertaken with the aim of destroying
the Orthodox Church itself, working simultaneously in two directions: by
means of horrible, unheard of persecutions, all but surpassing the persecutions
of the first centuries of Christianity; and by means of dissolution from
within, with the help of Living Church ideas, renovationism, and the planting
of all sorts of free-thinking modernist tendencies in the spirit of Protestantism.
In the end, in most Orthodox countries which survived devastation, the
remnants of the local Churches were made into sorry tools of a power at
war with God.

Bountiful fruit, however, had been gathered by the "spirit of Antichrist"
in other Orthodox churches too, which remained free. They are strongly
infected by the poison of free-thinking liberalism and modernism which
is leading them to merger with Protestantism [8].
Thank God, there is still a remnant in them which has not bowed the knee
before the "spirit of Antichrist" which is ever more and more raising its
head!

{Editorial Note: Our American
Orthodox Church, having Russian roots through its lines of succession,
along with those of the Russian Orthodox Church who aided its guidance
from within the Russian Orthodox Church herself in the late 1970's and
1980's; are still remaining firm also, although the followers of the approaching
Antichrist have created a destructive schism in it as they are also doing
to the Russian Orthodox Church, and now they are trying to destroy it completely,
wipe it off the face of the earth, using for this all possible means, the
chief of which is lying, slander, attempts at blackmail (in spirit and
truth), enmity, all being the natural weapons of the father of lies and
slanderer from the beginning, the devil [9].}

The spectacle in the world is in general quite without cheer, and
would be a cause to get discouraged and fall into despair if we did not
know that "IT IS THUS WRITTEN" in the WORD OF GOD and all of this must
be so.

What should we do and how should we react?

"Apostasy is permitted by God," as one of the great instructors in
the spiritual life of our time, Bishop Ignatii (Brianchaniov) teaches us,
"do not attempt to stop it with your powerless hand. Flee from it
yourself, protect yourself from it; that is enough for you to do.
Learn to know the spirit of the age, study it, so whenever possible you
will be able to avoid its influence... ONLY God's special mercy is able
to stop this all-destroying moral epidemic, to stop it for a while, because
it is necessary that everything foretold by the Scriptures happen.

Judging by the spirit of the time and the intellectual ferment (Correctness
Disease?) one must suppose that the building of the Church, which has been
shaking for some time, will fall quickly and horribly. There is no
one to stop and oppose it. The measures undertaken to support it
are borrowed and hasten its fall, rather than stopping it.

There is no one who can be expected to restore Christianity!
The vessels of the Holy Spirit have finally dried up everywhere, even in
the monasteries, those treasures of piety and grace... The salt has lost
its savor. In the chief pastors of the Church there remains only
a weak, dim, inconsistent and incorrect understanding according to the
"letter" which kills the spiritual life (the Correctness Disease) in Christian
society and destroys Christianity, which is not an action, not a letter.

It is distressing to see to whom the sheep of Christ have been entrusted,
to whom their direction and salvation have been committed. But this
has been permitted by God. God's merciful patience delays and postpones
the decisive disintegration for the small remnant of those being saved,
while those who are decaying or have decayed attain the fullness of their
corruption.

Those who are being saved must understand this and make us of the
time given them for salvation. May the merciful Lord shield the remnant
of those who believe in Him in spirit and truth! But, this remnant
is meager and is becoming more and more so... "Let him who is being saved
save his soul," says the Spirit of God to remnant Christians.

Since the time when Bishop Ignatii wrote this, the situation in the
world has grown worse, not better. "Since the Antichrist will have
as his main task the drawing of everyone away .... " says the other great
spirit-filled preceptor of our time, Bishop Theophane the Recluse, "he
will not appear as long as royal authority remains in force... It
will not allow him to develop, it will hinder his acting in his own spirit.
This, then, is the "one who holds back" (II Thess. 2:7). But when
royal authority falls, and the people everywhere institute self-government
(republics, democracies), then there will be room for the Antichrist to
act. It will not be hard for Satan to prepare voices in favor of
renouncing Christ, as experience showed during the French revolution.
There will be no one to pronounce an authoritative veto. And so when
such regimes, suitable for disclosing the Antichrist's aspirations, are
instituted, ae instituted everywhere, then the Antichrist will appear.

What Bishop Theophan predicted has happened: the Antichrist's "forerunners"
have done their job and are continuing in their endeavors .... the "spirit
of Antichrist" is installed everywhere, having everywhere established "regimes,
suitable for disclosing the Antichrist's aspirations."

Remembering Bishop Ignatii's words that "the Antichrist will be logical,
just, and the natural result of the general moral and spiritual direction
of mankind," we leave it to the reader's attentive to surrounding life
to draw his own conclusions from what has been said above, while, on our
part, we can only repeat: "Let him who is being saved save his soul!"

NOTES:

[1] This had already begun from
the times of the Holy Apostles, into these times in which we presently
live. Protestantism's initial beginning to offset the Roman catholic
Church in those previous centuries when Martin Luther expounded his theological
treatises as a return toward the true Life and Teachings of Jesus Christ
only caused for a worsened state of affairs to occur in the Protestant
formation as promulgated by the Antichrist, making it even worse than that
which they tried to escape and reform. Return

[2] Cow statues drinking milk,
the Dalhai Lama placing a statute on the tabernacle of the Papal altar
with the Pope alongside and participating in worshipping a blasphemy; Protestant
churches performing the present 'miracle' of providing food for the hungry
through out the world through their various service agencies as a
means to spread false doctrines promulgated by the spirit of Antichrist:
Protestant street missions forcing good Catholic (albeit: Roman and even
Orthodox) faithful who are homeless to worship in heretical settings in
order to obtain sleeping quarters and food for the night: and even worse
things... Elevation of some sport activities, professions, to that of a
religion; violent music styles lauded by churches as worthy of use in worship,
etc. Return

[3] Orthodox and Roman Catholic
clergy being singled out and scandalized by allegations and charges of
sex molestation (some false, some true) but most being made public before
an in-depth evidentiary investigation is completed while little to nothing
is said about or concerning the opined wide spread same activities among
the Protestant clergy and their churches, cults, sects, pagans, etc. with
only token news provided about them after a more thorough investigation
is completed in many instances: "Hearsay Laws" being implemented where
sex scandals are turned into convictions without solid evidence: gang-banger
music which is not even true music bur words, for the most part, in which
the most horrendous and worse kinds of violence is depicted, has become
"music" to be praised and elevated to the ranks of 'culture' : families
loosing certain rights to raise their own children as government steps
in to deny them their rights: Roman Catholic and Protestants together training
'Catholic' seminarians at major universities.... Return

[4] Insinuating itself into many
jurisdictions of the One, Holy, Orthodox, Catholic and Apostolic Church,
the spirit of Antichrist moves those clergy who have aberrant qualities
within; such as concern for self-image, observing that which St. John Maximvotich
and Father Seraphim Rose describe as the "Correctness Disease" by which
the feel themselves to be academically superior or more Orthodox to others,
fomenting power struggles, manipulating the minds and hearts of those less
educated, those with learning disabilities, creating enmity, creating division,
unable to maintain a true struggle for the Holy Spirit, carrying themselves
in a less than humble spirit which opened the door to the spirit of Antichrist
the forerunner. Also See: "MAN: To err and Holy Spirit" and "Don't
Blame God!" Return

[5] From the times of the Holy
Apostle this had begun. We saw this in World War II, especially in
Russia while in more recent times we this with clergy being imprisoned
on false convictions and as already said in the above #[4]. Return

[6] As already ensconced in the
World Council of Churches and the World Council of Bishops. Return

[8] Has already begun through
the World Council of Churches whose membership now include the Moscow Patriarchate,
the Patriarch of Constantinople and others, including the Pope (Patriarch)
of the Roman Catholic Church (see: #2, above) and even the Patriarchate
of the Antiochian Church. Return

[9] The American Orthodox Church
in/of North America (Mexico, U.S.A. and Canada) has had to root out and
separate clergy and those with them over the many years because of these
very things having been witnessed in recent times. This does not
mean the A.O.C. as a jurisdiction of the One, Holy, Orthodox, Catholic
and Apostolic Church is free from the spirit of Antichrist, or that she
is purely Orthodox, as it is in these times impossible to make such a claim
whatsoever by any jurisdiction or Church, so much as she (the A.O.C.) claims
to be on the spiritual path that she maintains her commitment in struggling
for the faith once delivered in spirit and truth from the Life and Teachings
of Jesus Christ, the Holy Apostles, Patristic Fathers and Holy Spirit.
Return